Never Tattoo Sanskrit

Tattoos have been on the rise for some time now. In my day, the only people who got tats were biker dudes and prostitutes. All a tattoo artist needed to do was be able to spell "Born to Ride" and draw a small rose on someone's ankle. Today, things are more complicated.

I've been asking people about their tattoos. Not surprisingly, many have deep meanings such as lines from a Robert Frost poem to a favorite quote from one's grandmother. People undergo a painful experience to make a statement revealing something about themselves. How awful it must be to realize that tattooed words are misspelled. It's bad enough that you have to read the same phrase on your arm for the rest of your life without reliving your inability to spell as well.

I saw a picture of a tattoo on the internet that read,

"No Regerts."

The dude must hear, "You meant regrets”every time he goes to a pool party. That tattoo is worse than eczema.

Beckham's Back

David Beckham misspelled his wife's name on his arm. To his defense, he had her name tattooed in Sanskrit, and it got lost in translation. It was supposed to read "Victoria." Instead it reads, "Tammy." No, that's not true. It says "Vihctoria." Close enough.

Britney Spears had a Chinese symbol tattooed on her hip that was supposed to read "mysterious." The largest Chinese dictionary defines 23,000 distinct characters. The chances Britney was going to get this right even after emancipation wasn't very good. Britney's tattoo reads "strange." Maybe she meant that seeing how she was once sued for $10 million by a former bodyguard who claimed she frequently farted in his presence.

Recording artist and singer, Jesse J, had tattooed on her side,

"Don't loose who you are in the blur of the star!"

Jesse along with her tattoo artist both failed to see the extra "o." Lucky for Jesse her mother was good with a dictionary and pointed it out. Jesse loses on that one.

Rihanna has a lot of tattoos including wings under her breasts. That must have hurt. On her neck she attempted to tattoo "rebellious flower" in French, but the French have this annoying habit of switching the order of adjectives and nouns. They say "grange rouge" for "red barn." Rihanna got a tattoo that reads "rebelle fleur" which translates to "flower rebel." I'm sure that has meaning to hardcore gardeners.

She also took the same road as Beckham and tried to tattoo "forgiveness" in Sanskrit on her hip. Instead, she got "flatulence." No, that's not true. It's purported by a Sanskrit expert named Mark Fielden that her tattoo is "incorrectly written." I don't know who this self proclaimed expert is, but he's apparently noticed something amiss while staring at Rihanna's hip.



Johnny Depp had a tattoo that read "Winona Forever" on his right deltoid to honor his then fiancé Winona Ryder. When their relationship fell short of forever, Depp removed the last letters of her name so the tat reads "Wino Forever." Good thing her name wasn't "Peni."

You really need to know what you're doing when you get a tattoo because it's just as painful to get it removed as it is to get it in the first place. The permanence of tattoos is what makes them so special. Tattoo artists should make ample use of spellcheckers and the many online Sanskrit translators. Times change but tattoos don't which is why they sometimes lead to regerts.

Editor's Note: Originally published on May 23, 2017.